toronto buildings day of action

DAY OF ACTION: 350.org’s Toronto event

Last updated: October 20th, 2018

Day of Action in TorontoLike many others around the world on October 24th I took part in 350.org’s International Day of Climate Action. I headed down to Queen’s Park, where I found the Toronto Climate Campaign rally in full swing in front of the dim and shuttered provincial parliamentary buildings. I had arrived just in time to hear Afsan Chowdhury, from the York Centre for Asian Research, speak on the subject of the day. Chowdhury, being a native of Bangladesh, has a story to tell. Not only may his low-lying nation soon disappear into the sea due to rising sea levels, but it’s also one of the poorest countries in the world.

Activism in the world

People from Bangladesh and other countries like Chowdhury’s, as well as people from countries like mine—those with the means and political clout to challenge climate change—joined as one on this day. People came together the world over on October 24th for the most widespread day of environmental action in the planet’s history.

Activism on the Internet

Online organizations, such as 350.org, Avaaz.org and a host of other groups, have been working for years to capitalize on the openness of the web to build a globally accessible movement for addressing climate change and human rights violations. According to its website, 350.org is the brainchild of Bill McKibben, an activist who has been “leading the fight against global warming for 20 years, since he wrote the first book for a general audience on the subject, The End of Nature, in 1989.” This online organization that’s dedicated to peaceful, ecological activism is so named because “350 is the number that leading scientists say is the safe upper limit for carbon dioxide, measured in “parts per million” in our atmosphere. The global warming formula dictates that as the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere rises, so do atmospheric temperatures. In fact, an increase of just a few degrees can completely change the world as we know it and threaten the lives of millions. Notably, the global carbon index is currently hovering at about 380 ppm.

The online organization’s successful email-based campaign has been most influential these last 12 months. The group has used its Day of Action campaign to spread an important message: average people can be heard on the world stage if they all shout at once.

Kyoto revisited

Right now, the message of all those shouting people is simple: December 2009 marks the United Nations Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen, where world leaders will meet to devise a follow-up agreement to the soon-to-expire Kyoto Accord. In preparation for this conference, 350.org launched its global Day of Action by inviting people the world over to demonstrate peacefully in their local communities, by presenting an “action,” or performance, that underlines the fact that this time around governments need to do more than pay lip service to halting climate change. 350.org’s advertising blitz hopes to “influence public policy by putting the number ‘350’ in the minds of political leaders in preparation for the UN Climate Change Conference.” According to Joanna Dafoe, campaign coordinator for 350.org in Canada, grassroots activism has worked for McKibben in the past. His Step It Up campaign organized over 2,000 creatively conceived rallies, which helped convince many political leaders, including then Senator Barack Obama, to adopt 350.org’s common call to action by cutting carbon 80% by 2050.

…but did it fly this time?

The Day of Action was 5200 events strong, including mass demonstrations by people in 181 of the world’s 190-something countries. By engaging 93% of the world’s nations, 350.org thundered the concerns of the globe’s masses. Photographs from around the world poured into 350.org’s offices as the sun rose across the globe on the big day (see these photos yourself at http://www.350.org). These powerful images have been distributed to hundreds of national, regional and local leaders in the hopes of creating change in Copenhagen.

According to Chowdhury, both the cry of the masses and the individual voice are crucial. He related in his moving speech that he sees change coming from the West. He advised the crowd to lobby western powers to take better action on climate change. The west must lead the charge on climate change.

[su_panel background=”#f2f2f2″ color=”#000000″ border=”0px none #ffffff” shadow=”0px 0px 0px #ffffff”]by Joanna Marshall, © 2009, Joanna Marshall

image: Medmoiselle T (Creative Commons BY-ND)